Heretic
by Tentaculiferous
Summary: Future fic. Armin is a squad leader and researcher. While on a mission, he encounters one of his childhood bullies. His reaction is unexpected. [One-shot, GEN]


Author's Note: This was originally posted to the kinkmeme, and then to AO3, and now it's finally getting put up here for those who prefer to read on this site. Of course, I love this site, but it is a bit of a pain to put fics up here. Also, Chlodwig is the gray-haired bully from the first episode. (I picked that name for him because frankly, it sounds like a horrible name to be given as a child. My apologies to all the Chlodwigs of the world :D)

* * *

_Heretic_.

Despite what Armin thought, the beatings had little to do with any heresy, or with an inability to prove that mankind should stay put behind the safety of the walls.

No, the reason why Chlodwig so enjoyed the beatings, the bruises, and blood that he brought forth from Armin was in part because there was no reason behind it. It was an amazing and yet commonplace luxury, that you could inflict so much harm on a human being and pay no cost.

The sheer pointlessness of the cruelty was what he reveled in.

It was simply the nature of people, to hurt others carelessly and without thought.

In a way he was grateful to Armin, for being smaller and weaker than he was, and being dumb or naïve enough to go around spouting all the nonsense about a world beyond the walls.

Chlodwig could not have cared less about it; whether people went out there or stayed in, it was all the same to him. He did know that if it wasn't for the idiots Armin and Eren drawing ire down on themselves, he would probably have been the target of his friends' casual cruelty, the incessant need to break others down and take pleasure in finding their every weakness and fault.

He really could have killed his mother for making him wear the long robes; they were dreadfully out of fashion for all but women and priests these days. Oh, and his silvery hair was just too precious and silky for her to cut, wasn't it?

The end result was that he had almost gotten down on his knees in gratitude when Armin had found that stupid book and started going on with his bullshit about lava water or whatever. That was the day when he had stopped hearing "We don't hang out with girls" when he showed up at Felix or Christoph's house. That was the day the questions about his dowry ended.

He was grateful to Armin, sure. Not so grateful that he could refrain from lashing a foot out as he walked by on Market Day, and sending Armin tumbling down a flight of steps.

The startled cry and sick smack of flesh and bone against heavy rock was music to his ears.

The bloodied and wet, tearful eyes were a beautiful sight. He felt a little bad about Armin's arm—it was twisted in a very amusing way, bent at a sickening angle that was far beyond the limits of bone. Oh well, Armin was butt buddies with the doctor's kid, he'd get it patched up.

When he was on his own, he was content to settle for quick, singular strikes. A swift punch at his slinged arm, a yank of the hair as he was walking by, a shove, a kick. Never sticking around long enough to fall victim to Armin's reinforcements, Eren and Mikasa.

The total beatdowns were reserved for when he was accompanied by Christoph and Felix. Numbers were everything, support, safety.

* * *

Numbers were why he survived the Titan attack. That old saying about only having to outrun the slowest person was so true. With the instincts of a born survivor—or a rat deserting a sinking ship—he'd turned tail and began fleeing the instant he saw the head at the wall. Gisela Spreckels' stolen underpants, a treasure long-sought and today, achieved, dropped thoughtlessly in their pink linen glory to the cobblestones.

It was only a few more seconds before Felix and Christoph were sprinting behind him.

The familiar town sights were a blur as he wove through the crowds and the mayhem. The uncannily long shadows of the Titans blocking out the sunlight occasionally warranted a quick glance behind him.

It was past the baker's shop, now crushed by stone, that Christoph went. The sun made an eerie backlight for the image that would be perfectly frozen forever in his mind. Chris's pudgy body, that warm and familiar sight, hidden away completely in a Titan's fist.

Chlodwig was a survivor, and he ran even as he looked back. The Titan receded further and further in his view, but not so far away that he couldn't see the terror on Christoph's face, brown hair flying wildly as he tumbled end over end through the air and into the Titan's gaping maw.

Felix, poor bastard, had frozen in place watching it. Not for long, not even half a minute. Still too long.

When he snapped out of it, and saw the Titan approach, he tried to hide.

It was instinctive perhaps, and stupid, but not much more stupid than trying to outrun something that was over three times your height.

The last Chlodwig saw of him, he was diving into a nearby root cellar. Chlodwig decided to stop looking back.

The time it took for the Titan to fish poor Felix out of the cellar, was enough time for Chlodwig to get to the gate.

When he saw his mother on the first boat, not even half-full yet, he felt no shame at all in running into her arms. Those who would have laughed were dead now.

* * *

It's been too long since he's been in the field, is what's running through his mind as the scenery flips by in the dizzying glances he takes in as he heads to the inner part of the town, where the Titans have already reached.

It's all too easy to get sucked into research, into staying holed up in the lab struggling to unwind the mysteries that are their foes. It's where he is most comfortable, most at home. The strategy meetings he is pulled into are another story; while his mind is adept enough, the consequences of failure there are so much more tangible than those of the lab.

Battles are worst of all though. Quick mind or not, too much is up to random chance, physical ability, and plain luck for him to ever feel entirely comfortable going in. Even now his hands shake slightly as he goes from building to building, high spot to high spot. It doesn't help that the 3D Maneuver Gear's efficiency has been improved since the last time he used it in battles, and even with a few training runs, he still isn't quite used to the new speed he's traveling at. And so it's with an extra hard lurch of his stomach that he spots the first of the Titans.

As he heads toward the Titans, he embraces his jittering nerves. Fight-or-flight screaming at him to run away might feel unbelievably unpleasant, but since he is committed to the choice of fight, he can intellectually be grateful for the increased speed and strength the adrenaline rush gives him along with the unpleasant racing heart and trembling muscles.

The goal today is not to kill all the Titans. It is not even to reclaim the recently fallen town of Staubbeutal. It is not to evacuate survivors; that job having been finished a mere day ago. There may be a few humans still hidden away in hiding holes, cellars and deep basements, stuffy attics; the remaining presence of Titans attests to that.

No, the goal today is simply to test the 3DMG upgrade under battle conditions.

Still, as Armin sees a 5 meter Titan digging eagerly into the dirt, he can't help but be glad there is a real purpose here today. He is not putting his life at risk for nothing other than a field test; there are human lives, however strategically unimportant, to be saved.

He goes in.

* * *

The root cellar is warm and dark. He knows he is going to die; depth does not equal safety in the world of the Titans. What would take humans days to dig out takes minutes with the huge scoops the Titans can take out of the earth with their bare hands.

Still, it is a comforting place to hide. Unlike in the rooms of houses, there is no possibility of seeing the Titans roaming around outside. No breath held, sphincter tightening, as one walks by the window. Instead, there is only darkness, and the scent of tomatoes, pease, and carrots, neatly canned by some housewife in preparation for the winter.

Although it's been over a day since he's had any food, the sounds outside quickly kill any desire he has to test the housewive's canning abilities.

It is the sound of scratching. It is a sound he has heard before. You wouldn't think that the sound of fingernails the size of a human head digging through the dirt would be a sound anyone would have in their memory, but Chlodwig remembers Felix. The end has come.

His stomach flips; if it had anything in it, he surely would have vomited it up by now. His fear is a tangible thing, so harsh and aching that is physically painful. Still, he has not consigned himself to dying just yet. Even though his chances of survival are essentially nothing, he does not want to die cowering like a scared rat in a hole. He has one chance out of the bolthole, to die beneath a blue sky, or at least, running, grabbing at any last chance of survival.

He does not have to wait long. The sun breaks through the cellar's door in one instance, and the dreaded hand is reaching in, groping for him. It is reaching _deep_ though, and Chlodwig, contrary to every instinct screaming at him, had already decided not to flee into the depths of the cellar from the Titan. That way lay death, staved off only for a few precious seconds.

He instead runs forward, under the Titan's arm, and up the steps. He bursts out into the sunlight, eyes stinging from the sudden brightness, but running away from the direction of the Titan all the same, half-blinded.

* * *

That's when Armin sees him. He had been swinging down from above, ready to slay the digging Titan, when the man ran out of the cellar. The shock of seeing that long, rectangular face running toward him over the collar of a blue long tunic was too familiar to him, and it was a sickening sense of deja vu that caused his intent to waver and his course to be thrown off. He had to rapidly adjust the balance of his body weight to avoid smacking into the building Chlodwig had been hiding under.

In that short span of time, Chlodwig had raced down an alleyway, likely in the hope that the Titan was too large to pursue him down it. Armin could have told him that it was futile, the Titan, with its dimensions, would just be able to squeeze in. He also could have told him it was a dead-end.

* * *

As it is, Chlodwig is left to discover that fact on his own. All too soon, the Titan has filled the alleyway and there is no going back, only forward. Too soon, the red, sturdy brick of the back of the chandler's shop is under his palms, still warm from the day's sun, and spelling an end to the idea of forward. Now there is only up, and down.

Up is out; Chlodwig does not have wings, or the grapple gear of the soldiers. Down has failed him once today already, but it is his only shot, and he is on his knees, tugging mercilessly on the grimy, stinking bars of the sewer grate near him.

He is still tugging, tears running down his cheeks, as he watches the Titan come into reaching distance of him. He is still tugging when someone leaps off the side of the rooftop towards him.

At first he thinks it's an angel that's come to save him, but no, it's _Armin_. It feels like he stares into those blue eyes for an eternity, Titan's hand poised over them hovering, but then the moment is shattered. Strong, wiry arms wrap around him, and they're flying.

Instead of heading at fullspeed toward the Wall, as Chlodwig would like, Armin lands them on a nearby building. And then Armin leaves him behind.

* * *

It's been years since he's seen Armin. He hasn't even thought of the boy in what seems like forever—Chlodwig assumed he died along with the majority of the town's residents. Armin sticks out in his memory only because beating the tar out of him was one of the last things he did with his friends.

In all the years that have passed by, Armin hasn't changed much. He's leaner, taller, and there is a decade's worth of pain and wear in those big innocent blue eyes, but he still looks soft and fluffy enough that few, upon first meeting him, would take him for a veteran member of the Scouting Legion and head of one of it's squads.

* * *

He's left on the roof of Broderers' Guildhall, left to watch, stunned, as Armin, instead of running in the other direction and leaving him to die like any sane person would, chooses to _run toward and leap at the Titan. _

Chlodwig's only thoughts are on how the hell he is going to get off of the roof while Armin is being eaten, but to his shock, Armin ducks under the grasping hands of the Titan. The Titan's two hands come together in a smack that would have smashed Armin flat, in a pose that reminds Chlodwig of an old tapestry in the very building below him. _Non nobis Domine non nobis sed Nomini tuo da gloriam,_the nonsense words of the tapestry run through his mind as he watches Armin's tiny figure leap behind the Titan.

"There it is, now he's leaving me to die." Chlodwig whispers, the sudden, completely irrational hope that had bloomed within him dying all too quickly.

But no, while Armin is landing beyond the Titan, the Titan is falling, falling, and blood is spraying the air where it was left behind.

He sheathes his blades, looking ridiculously powerful for all his tinyness relative to their foes, and Chlodwig still cannot believe that Armin is alive, a badass Titan slayer, and managed to come to his, of all people's, rescue in an almost miraculous manner.

When Armin comes back to him, and tells him that he will take him to safety, it's all he can do not to gape.  
He knows that he is cynical, that he is jaded, but he cannot understand _why_ Armin is doing this. There is a key element to this puzzle that he is missing, he knows that, but acknowledging that does not gain him any further understanding.

For the first time, it really occurs to Chlodwig that maybe things like honesty and bravery aren't merely cheap lies people created to sucker in the dim and unsuspecting. Seeing Armin put his own skin on the line, willingly flying in the direction of the open jaws of the Titan, all for the sake of a human that made his own life miserable, that tormented him and injured him... it occurs to him exactly how mean, how small and petty, his own way of looking at the world has been.

There is no good reason, going by the motive of personal self-interest, that a person would willingly fly in the face Titans to save him from death. If everyone thought the way Chlodwig did, he himself wouldn't be alive today, skimming through the surface of the city in the arms of a boy who is, contrary to what he thought when they were children, better than him.  
Perhaps there is some point to virtues after all.

And then, holy shit, Armin is flying them toward a Titan, a huge, mean looking motherfucker with a twisted, hateful grin and bright green eyes. Armin can't help but laugh when Chlodwig lets out a squeak and grasps him impossibly tight.

And when Armin sees recognition dawn in Eren's Titan eyes, he has a good idea of what Eren intends when he crooks a finger at him.

Armin obligingly swoops by, and Eren snaps his rows of Titan teeth close enough to Chlodwig to rip a segment of navy blue fabric off his cloak. Although he can't help but feel guilty (Chlodwig really has been through a tremendous amount of suffering today) his screams are still music to Armin's ears.

Schadenfreude is a victimless sin, after all.

* * *

FIN~

As always, any feedback is loved


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